The Sun. — London, England, 1818-03-10 00:00:00

appear the justice and necessity of passing rt. Ite wished to call the recollection of the House to previous pioceedings of this nature, not for the purpose of saying, that because in former times Indemnity Bills had passed, that therefore the present Bill ought to pass ; but in order to show the occasions on which Such Bills had been pro duced and sanctioned by both Houses. And he would point out to the recollection of the House, that though, in certain circumstances, these Bills bad differed, yet the circumstances which called for the present Bill ftll completely within the scope of those which jostified similar Bills on former occasions. It seemed, however, that some misconception had prevailed as to the facts which led to the piosing of the former Bills; for he be lieved it had been supposed by some Gentlemen, that the year. MI was tile first time that an In demnity Bill had passed subsequeutly to the Sits pension of the Habeas Corpus Act. But it would be found, that io most instance* in which tile Legislature (tad deemed it necessary to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act—indeed in all instances excepting one, no Indemnity Bill had passed after the -Suspension of that Act. There had also been instances of Indemnity Bills in cases where there had been no Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. The fact was, that with respect to both classes of die Bills, they had been passed at dif ferent times sioce the Revolution, according as the necessity of the tittles rendered tlfetts indispett slide. But the same exigency that created the Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act made it ne cessary that Bills of Indemnity should he carried, for the protections of the guardians of the public trangoillity, as well as for the protection of those who had furnished thens with intto rot a t onthe au thority of which they had roomd it n eces s a ry t o t a k e the steps that had beet' resorted to. If Gentlemen would take she trouble to refer back to the time of the Revolution, they would find,-that the per sons who were the greatest supporters of that memorable proceeding, and the means of preserv ing the laws and liberties of the people of this conotry,—that these persons, intim:di !tidy after passing the 13i11 of Rights, found it necessary to pass three several Acts for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act ; and as they expired, there were passed In dentoity trills to protect the persons who had in formed against and apprehended those guilty of conspiracies against the reigning Monarch.. At a subsequent period an Indetniety Bill was passed wild s was not preceded by a suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. It was its the year 1;14, and the. Act was the Ist of George 1., cap. 39, and it recited, that as several Lords-Lieutenants and other officers had apprehended certain persons, who might have excited riots and distm bailees, it was deemed necessary by Parliament to indato nify thefts for their conduct its the preservation of the public peace. Its the year 1744, the Act for the Suspension of the Writ of 11aheas Corpus teas not immediately followed up by an Indemnity Bill ; but in 1746, ale' yAct was produced, t o pro tect all persons in the situation of. Magistrates, & c . for theirconduet its the preceding year,aud for what they might have done subsequent to the expirae thou of that Act. This, however, was not thought sufficiettt ; for as that Act only indemnified them to the 30th of April, and as the Magistrates had been under the necessity of_taking IT several per sons subset/item td that „day, another Act was passed, indemnifying them for all setinos (fine between the 30th of April and the 25th of July, 1746. Thus an Indemnity Bill bad its all in stances followed the other. Front that time till the year 1792, there was no Suspension of the Ilaheas Corpus Act ; but there was an Indem nity Bill for the circumstances that took place its the yerir 1780 ; as the Magistrates and other had acted on their own responsibility for the security of the ,public peace, at a time when it was absolutely necessary for them (0 interfere, and when it teas difficult, if they had been prosecuted, to bring home the offence to the persons they had secured, so as to justify their apprehension. From that time till theyear:lBol, was not aware of any Bill of -tl►is kind having !teen passel; hut in that year there were two such Acts, for indetnn►fying persons for having apprehemied and detained in- dividuals suspected of High Tteason, and for hav ing been active in suppre•sing tumults and riots in Ireland. lie merely mention,d this to skew that our predecessors thought it necessary to in demnify public officers for apprehending persons who had assembled - as auxiliaries for treasonable purposes On all those occasions it must have been for the. consideration of the House whether the exigencies of the times had been stic,ll as to justify those particular Bills. Now, it was seen that twice during the period he had mentioned, and after the fullest discussion, Parliament had thought it necessary for the peace of the country to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act, and to give certain powers to the-Secretary of State and the Privy Council, for the purpose of detention. If the House would recollect the circumstances which bad taken place within the last fourteen months, they must he convinced that it was absolutely ne cessary for those who were the guardians of the peace of the country to take the steps they done, and that they would have been guilty of a gross dereliction of their duty if they had acted other wise. They were therefore fully entitled to the Indemnity of Parliament, in order that if any proceedings should be instituted against them in Courts of Law, they might not be tinder the ne cessity of disclosing the testimonies they had re ceived, and thereby marking out those persons as object of vengeance, or be put in the situation of violating the confidence reposed in them.•-- Without such a protection, they would be put in the situation of sacrificing those persons, by mak ing public their names, who bad given informa tion on condition that they should not be disclosed. It was impossible not to see that there had been conspiracies formed for the pur pose of overthrowing the Government of this kingdom in Church and State, as established by law. Plans had been formed by persons taking advantages of the distresses of the lower orders of the people, to get them to assemble un- . . der the false pretence of petitioning that House for a Refoi►n in Parliament, while th,eir real objects, undisguised amongst them , elves, was to effect an entire revolulion ; so that at the very time they were speaking of Reform, they had iu view nothing but destruction to a'tl the adistired anti revered ibilitutioris of the country. The transactions that had.taken place in February last year, and the December preced ing, manifested the intention of getting together large - nuatbers of people, for the purpose of per suading them to acts of insurrection and revolt.— It therefore became the absolute duty of the Ma gistracy to interfere, and they performed that duty in a manner highly creditable to themselves, and beneficial to the country. Here he could not help observing, that amongst the intentions de tailed to the Committee of that house which %vas appointed last year, one scheme of those who were endeavouring to• disturb the public peace, was the plan of coming to Parliament with peti tions. signed by ten persons - each ; but in large bodies of several thousands, every tenth person having a petition in his hand. This was stated in February, and its truth was established by the attempt to carry the daring project into effect at Manchester in the fol:owing month. Who were the projectors or instigators of this bold scheme he could not say ; but it was a cool and deliberate plan of some persons who had studied every head and section of the law against tionaltuous assem blies, in order to see if they could not he evaded ; and there was n o watt but must be convinced, that instead of these being large assemblies of Pe titioners, their object was io have a sort of army, every ten men having a leader, and every hundred a centurion, that they might come to overawe Pat liantent, not by petitioning, but by threats and terror. He would say, there never was a more mischievous or a more atrocious project than this was intended to be, if. it had not been circumvent ed. Poor persons were persoaded to leave their labours, and tomareh without provisions, cloth ing, or any means of supporting nature, so that their very necessities must have led them to violate the laws as they proceeded, if+ order to prevent themselves from starving. It was, therefore, the imperative duty of the Magis trates to stop them in all the p'arts through which they passed, as being unlawfully assembled, in the danger of the public peace. When the evils took place in the year 1780, the reproach against the guardians of the public peace was, that they had nut done their duty, as the situa tion in which they stood called oft them to stop those outrageous proceerliugs, instead of letting them go on till they burst into an explosion.— What would they have said to the Magistrates of those counties, if they had found the insurgents of last year at the doors of that House, or even in the Metropolis, with their Petitions amongst every tell men ? Would it not have been said, that they had been guilty of a gross dereliction of their ditty ? The House also would recollect the proceedings that had taken place at Manchester, that information of these proceedings had been given upon oath, and that on this information the Government had acted. The Committee had reported last year on the state of the country, anti the Committee to whom the papers were lately referred had reported their opinions on its present .state, all founded on the oaths of persons who ,had deposed to the circumstances that had taken place. Those facts must prove that distur bances had occurred, and that it was absolutely necessaty to proceed to the trials of the most ac tive conspirators at Derby, by which step the in surrection was put down. As he had spoken of the trials at Derby, he woidd add, that it was clearly proved, front the testimony of persons whom it was impassible to doubt, that this was the branch Of a large conspiracy which was in tended to extend to (natty parts of the country, amd which was only prevented front taking full effect by the activity of the Magistrates. The trials in question had fully satisfied hint that a deep laid conspiracy had existed, and that it- would have gone on and led to a universal explosion. What he meant to say was, that it would have been go far general as to have taken place where ever an assembly of misguided people had been collected. With respect to what bad been said about Oliver, he wouhl counteract an important impression that had been made on the public wind respecting his appearance at Derby during those trials. Oliver was not brought there to give his evidence ; he was brought there for a very dif ferent purpose. Ile had no hesitation in saying, that he (the Attorney-General) had been the man who had caused hint to be brought down, and he would state for what purpose. There was a mart who had been at Derby, and said he had seen Oliver amongst the conspirators, and he was to appear as a witness, and was to have proved that the man he was speaking of was Oliver.— Oliver was therefore'sent for to Derby, not that he might be examined as a witness, but as an auxiliary, that those on their trials might have an opportunity of saying whether he was the man; but the Jury were perfectly satisfied that lie was not the man. This was the reason for Oliver being at Derby, and it was a good reason ; not for the purpose of having any thing communicated by him, but that he might he confronted with persons who might have said that he was present at many of those meetings ; and thus the base fraud abed on that occasion would have been de tected. Ile might to apologise, as this was the first opportunity he had had of waking the state ment, and he (lid it for the purpose, that if any blame was to be attached for having Oliver at Derby, it nnglit rest upon him. Now it had been proved that there had been an intention to bring about a revolution, and if there were such an in tention, whether this ,conspiracy existed only amongst the lower orders, or was secretly iusti- gated by persons of a higher rank in society, was of no importance—it was the duly of Govern ment to prevent it from taking place. It could not be denied that means wore used to work upon the passions of the misguided people in the most atrocious way, and this was by an attempt to de stroy their religions feelings. He would venture to say, that the tendency of those bla.vhentous publications that had been so widely disseminated, was to undermine and destroy all the principles of religion amongst the lower orders, who had hi therto regarded them with reverence and venera tion. There !mist be few persons who could not see that this %Os one of the objects of such pub licatiocs ; and theft he heard it'asserted that they had nor‘had much circulation, and that persons xbo wanted to buy them out of curiosity could not obtaitt them, he was Absolutely astonished.— It was impossible to walk through the streets wit host seeing the:n at every were hawked about in the country, and must in dustriously circulated ; and the persons were stopped, from the circumstance - of their belt) liable to the penalty outlet. the Hawkers' Act, for having no license ; then these infamous productions were given away ; they saying they could Dot be prosecuted for giving away what they pleased. Thus no man who knew what had been lately passing in this country could deny that this was a principal means by which the peo ple had been corropted. Then it the coospira des had, been formed for the purpose of producing insurrection, surely it was necessary for the guar dians of the public peace to act as they had done ; and it must also be admitted, that they tt wild have been guilty of a' gross derelictiOn of their duty if they had acted otherwise. If then. they were warranted in apprehending those persons, they were also warranted in doing other acts. — Now when, under the warrants that were issued for apprehendiag- certain iuelividualQ, they also seized their papers, it appeared to him that they did right, for they thus prevented infiirmation being conveyed to their coadjutors. Another part of this,Act was to indemnify persons for the sei zure of - arms. It there was no desite to stir tip insurrection, then every thing that had been done in this way was wrong ; but it' otherwise, be would say that those who searched for arms were bound to do so for the preservation of the trait quitlity of the country. One of the petitions that had been laid on the :able of that House—he be lieved it was that from Francis Ward, complain ed that some persons entered into his house at Nottingham, for the parpose of searching far arms, but none were found, lie begged the House to recollect what was proved to have occurred at the time. It was on the 10th of June, just at the moment that the insurgents of Derby were march ing from thence to Nottingham, at which place the apprehensions had occurred a day or two be fore ; yet the search took place when the whole town was in alarm, and when there was a body of meu . in that town ready to receive those who should arrive from Derby, to take possession of that place. Would it not occur, then, that at such a time it was the duty of Magistrates to make a strict search, iu order to see•whether the suspected persons had arms, at a period when those they were combined with had assembled, and were preparing to join them ? ire would say, they would have been most negligent of their duty, if th e y h a d not taken all such proper steps to take away arms front every snspected person. In short, nothing whatever had been done that was not absolutely necessaty for the preservation of the peace. Then, surely, it was fit that those who had so properly and actively conducted them selves should be indemnified for their acts : or if they' were to have actions brought against them they would have no means of defending themselves but by disclosing the names of those who had given theta the intortnation ; though lie must re peat that those names should not he exposed. For if once it were tw be laid down, that Parlia weut s h ou ld act upon the principle that those who have given information to Government of treasonable conspiracies were to he exposed, no such information would in future he obtained, for every person would he afraid of affording it. — (Hear, heat !)—lf the House did not think them selkes called on to pass such a Bill, he would say that they encouraged future conspiracies, which would be carried on to a dreadful extent, and there would be no possibility of preventing them, or securing the kingdom from the danger which threatened it. There was a passage in the Re port of die last Committee, to the effect, that it was hoped the minds of the people were restored to a just' state, but that it would require the ut most vigilance of the Magistracy, and all well intentioned people, to preVeot the sante sort of disturbances from being renewed. This was the purport 01 the passage ; his IlleftWly did not serve him to quote it correctly ; butt he most conscien tiously believed that the spirit which. had given rise to the late disturbances was by Ito means ex tinct ; and that in many quarters attempts were still going out to keep tip and expand this spirit, and to get large bodies of people together for the pretence of petitioning fur reform, but with the real object of producing new insurrections. But, let no man suppose that he was of opinion that any thing in the shape of a reform was an Out rage upon the constitution. He thought no such thing : but the Reformers of the class to which h e a ll u d e d were daring and desperate enthu siasts, who said in their speeches that the people had a right to carry their petitions to that Howse in one hand, and their swords in the other.— (Cries of no, no, from the Opposition side.)— That was the dictum of, these set of Reformers. But those who talked of Universal Suffrage and An runt! Parliaments Ineallt nothing but a Revolution. Annual Parliaments were an absurdity even to tl►itik of: they would not last a year, or more than a year, and every reasonable man must feel • his mind revolt at such opinions and such projects, which would overturn the constitution of any country upon earth that had a particle of civil li berty worth preserving. If the House decided, by rejecting this Bill, •that Ministers should be. con►- pelled to disclose the information on which they had acted, the consequence would be, Treason might again . rear its head without check or con troul and a repetition of the transactions of last year, at Derby and other places, which lead to insurrection, to revolution, and to every thing from the contemplation of which the mind re ironed, was to be expected. He then described tl►e provisions and the object of the Bill. Ile spewed that it was not formed exactly on the pre cedent of that of 1801. The circumstances of the last year had been different, and tl►e provisions of the Bill were necessarily varied in some mea sure. Those Magistr:Ates, for instance, he con tended, were entitled to protection who ha►l dis persed tumultuous assemolies in a manner not strictly conformable to the law. The case of the Blanketeers he particularly adverted to. It no law lityl existed that exactly applied to them, the Magistrates would hay; been culpable, if, in some way o r other, they had not dispersed so tumul tuous an assembly ; for, from its numbers, it must necessarily have been tumultuous, and what ever the avowed object, the attempt to execute the plan which had been formed for proceeding to London with one petition put on 10,000 slips of , „ , paper - , mast nave leo to `tire commission of crone. He %erotic! suppose the multitude which had been called together had accomplished their professed, j ect--had proceeded to London and besiege t ." the door of that House. He would ask, in that case, what would have been said of the 111,30' Rates ? They tvould assuredly have been cetr sured as guilty of a gross dereliction of their dug. In a case of great and urgent necessity, it . ho been thought wise to arm the Magistrates wit!: extraordinary powers, atultrow the present BO! became necessary to protect them for having e%,' ercised the powers which had been so confided t! then]. Un these grounds he hoped the 1.100 5 would see the necessity, time propriety, and tll 4 justice of passing the Bill. Air. LAMBTON proposed to apply himself tO the consideration of tie question generally—whethe any Indemnity Bill, without farther inquiry, ought to be passed in favour of Ministers, whose cool duct had, in his judgment, been such as wool° justify au impeachment. The time was at lenatl! come for winding up the transactions of the la year, and the Attorney-General now came to cal, upon the House to dm )p an impenetrable veil ove r , the acts of tyranny and injustice which had beel committed, that the voice of complaint might bj stilled, and that cruelties worse than those whic! had been perpetrated in the French Bastile migh t be for ever concealed from public view. It tli [louse did not repel this Bill with indignation, i t could no louger be denied that they were aecony 'dices in the acts which it wets framed to cover.—" Parliament had committed to the erre of Aliois' tens sharp anti dangerous aunt deadly weapons, bo‘ they had done this in time coldpieta expectatino that, they would be used with forbearance and lot' Inanity. Now, they had before them complaints/ preferred throngh the'sacred tight of petitiouiugs of the most abominable cruelties having- been coat ; mitted tinder the warrant of the Secretary 49 ' State. The only answer given to these charges was contained in time assertion of the distioguishe a humanity of the Noble Secretary of Mate for the Home Department. The Inonattity of. the Nobl e Lord might be great, or it might not be great.--' But, at all events, this did not appear front 1 ,0 public acts, and if it did, still his personal clia• racier was no ans , ver to the charge. His sue' censor mieht not he a matt of the same his' mane feelings, and therefore to him it wag clear that a bather inquiry was necessary.- -1 lie htmll.- heard of an inquisitor iu anciiolt times, `whoa.. sensibility was such that b e could not refrain from sheddiiig tears at tviT' nessing the tortures he thotteht it his dory to Timis, however, was not sntlicient to relieve lImL victims, any more ditto the humanity of the Se cretary of State was to satisfy those who loolsolf" fered under time late Solmension of the Ilab" g Corpus Act, The country he described to 10 0 been cheated out of its liberties by the Susf , c' y sin of the habeas Corpus Act, en false pretenctl fie censured time former Secret Committee, wl" its Report, in which he stated, a ll matters of tac t ; had been disregatded, and the, contory•asse . rte t to be in great danger, from time macliortions of bankrupt apothecary and a starving colder. r' more improbable tale had never !well framed I d impose upon the incredulity of man. The pri''' ) cipal witness bromm e ht t<nw,,rd to prov e what hi' been stated in that Report turned oot to he l : Government Spy, and such was the evidence of Jury. The Report„ however, such as it was, "' l4 fered, that the prisone r s w ere acqu i tte d by the seized upoo by that House, and the Great C leat., ter of time Lib e rti es o f t h e C ountry %vas suspel“.l' ed• lie took a vie-t• of the situation of the co H►t ' ~ try in 1639 an d 1745, an d con t en d e d, t h at till th` last year, the Habeas Corpus Act bad never be e( ' founded on such friVolous grounds as bad th em, been thought sufficient to justify its Sitspeosic", It was reserved for modern times to make it 34 , engine in the • hands of . Govermnent to keep . their jobs and places, and gag the soffering pie, that they might not complelin of the IP' lll gacy and misconduct of their rulers. The cont doct_of the Government had been similar to (I ' 3 o of Robespierre, when he found his power otr decline. lie, when lie found himself in daogeril l3 ; , 4 l announced dreadful plots and conspiracies agate the public peace, which lie himself had fahricat e `' He differed from time 'resent Ministers front 91: . ; !And in this, that his attacks were directed ardi nt persons of time highest rank and importance, those of tins Government had been directed I)" against starting manufacturers and distressed 1. 14e 1 chanics. Povetty, misery, amid starvation, Itae been every tvhere felt, but these did not make I", people sufficiently discomented to answer t he . p o .l pose of Ministers. The country was. loyal , a "' a the people were foolish enough to look tuf t that House for protection, and extrav 4 ga l , enough to expect those tvho were called their •' presentatives would afford them relief. 'l he ti° l vernment had then, ns.he believed, tholt s gbil tel , denied time fact, sent down Mr. Oliver auto"?' than, and front that time the standard of disal l ; cc: tion was unfu r led, and dist orbances occurred e to various parts of the country. The ma tt law, , m Qui facit per facit per se," 11 ; 1- , been strongly insisted upon during the late rria': i Ii the prosecution ,of his design Brandreth 1 3 0 committed murder, and ail connected with bli e ; had been held to participate in the cril l3 Why was not this principle extended to Oliv er ` who had set them on, and the GOVerninelie by whom he had been sent among them ? 1- j 0 1 ought to have been proceeded against, B ng those Crete it subjects for an impeaciArter who had sent him on that expedition. Yet „ acting the part they ha:! acted, instead of an 11/ .1 peacionent they expected a Bill of Indemnity, 91 0 this not so much for themselves as for those f rt) ti l t it born they derived their infot oration. And ‘ S .- 0 , were these persons ? The witnesses on whose I v telligence they acted, were not such as those % i v o f furs spec! intelligence in other times. listen obtaining information from uteri of rank and c . l e „ racter before they proceeded f r to such extremi ti o o they bad now none but what they received . e 5, their own hired mercenary blood-thirsty - sP i the Against one of these a fact had been given mo t he r public in n Morning Paper, which he from of sources- could state to be true, and co uld pru ce bet their bar. -- Front this statement it appeared ! i d Oliver, on the 26th January, 1817, had be 3 : s , the mob who insulted time Prince Regent. Re . t seen near the Horse Guards, where he' had go